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Happens all the time in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The mistake people make is believing a tournament decides the best team of a group. That is a mistake for a couple of main reasons. 1. Teams match up differently and since not every team in a tournament plays each other, it is impossible to prove which is better of that group. 2. A tournament rewards being great for a short period and not a greater body of work. See NC State with Valvano. A tournament does not always reward the best team in the country. It rewards the team that was able to make it through a bracket system without losing a game. There is a difference there.

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I actually agreed with everything he said about NIU last year. His main argument was NIU had lost to a horrible Iowa team and didn't deserve a BCS game because of it. In my opinion, that is a true. This year, he has not dumped on NIU because they are undefeated and the deserve to be there. I would agree. NIU deserves to be there this year. This just in. Herbstreit will be on Fox News tonight with Bill O'R to discuss the War on Christmas.

It's all ESPNs fault....

I'd watch it 12 months a year if it was offered. I watch the CFL for crying out loud. I think that between the American obsession with football and gambling degenerates, there is a huge market for football. ESPN televises college spring football practices and they are the most boring displays of football out there.

It has almost gotten to the point of insanity. They are driven insane by what their paranoia tells them is disrespect and aggression towards them. They think that somehow, every conference, especially the SEC and their henchmen at ESPN are leading the charge against them. SEC fans could care less about tosu and the sec is televised on CBS for crying out loud. I've really become aware of it since I moved from Ohio. It is very, very, very strange.... Very strange. They have created a bizarre world for themselves. I guess if they stopped obsessing about tosu though, they would just conjure up something else to be paranoid about...Like the war on Christmas that doesn't exist.

Good post. You are exactly correct in what I put in bold. It gets little attention because the national championships are played at a time when everyone is talking NFL playoffs and BCS bowls. Play it at a time when fans aren't talking about the two biggest football groups, or much at all for that matter, and you may really have something. "Hit'em where they ain't." - Willie Keeler

I wouldn't put coaches in it. They are going to work where they can get a job and in reality, there are very few head coaching jobs at the D1A level so they will work wherever and whenever they can. Where could Bowden get $300K a year? Doing television for maybe a little more. A coordinator at a BCS school would pay at least double $300K. The guy is coaching because he wants to and has a passion for it.

Very simple. It is because those working in athletic departments at our level are not interested in rocking the boat because they want to be an AD at the BCS level. Their potential career advancement comes at the expense of the schools they work for. Our enemy is within, not external: Athletic Directors and league commissioners.

I totally agree. However, the new guy at Miami doesn't have nearly the resume or ability of Bowden. While he may be a really good football coach, the mountain he must climb may be too big for just a good football coach. He is a good hire, but it could take a coach or two before that ship is righted.

Was the e-mail address gfaust@faustlogic.com?

Every tosu fan and their brother on Facebook has linked to this article. Without this article they would link to a war on Christmas article. Heck, the author probably took a break from his war on Christmas article to write this one. Interesting stats. I've never been a fan of using bowl records to create a comparison as I think that is unfair because bowl are exhibition games many games don't take too seriously. What strikes me most of all isn't the head to head comparisons of each conference, but the little they play each other with the exception of the ACC. People can think what they want about the ACC, but at least those teams have the balls to play the sec a lot and they compete well. Here is what the stats also tell me. Every conference out there has had combined 158 regular season games against the SEC and not once have the Ohio State Paranoids played a single regular season game against them. Hmmmmm. Some teams have balls, others don't. The complete stupidity within the story is ESPN is the cause of people's opinions because they are in bed with the sec. Can anyone tell me the network that televises the top sec games each week. Hint: It was the same network that televised the Alabama/Auburn game Saturday. It is the same network that will televise the SEC Championship this Saturday. ESPN is a heck of a promotional vehicle for a major competitor.

The best southern crazies come from families that once had boatloads of money and are just well off now, but not rich. See family description above.

I didn't mean murderous crazy. More like the family that likes to go to an Atlantic island and drink lots and lots of booze together. The cast of characters usually involves: The Husband: Nice, guy who tuned his wife out years ago...probably the day after they got married. The Housewife: Nice woman who sits inside all day with the blinds drawn drinking brown liquor. Worries that her son might be gay. The First Son: Went to same college as father and was in same fraternity. Married woman his mother wanted him to. Has secret gay lover. The First Daughter: Went to same college as where parents met. Majored in Education. Married college sweetheart. Basically living her mother's life. Having regular sex with the tennis instructor at the country club just like the other five women on her tennis team. Sibling Three: Largely ignored for its entire life. Knows older brother is gay but doesn't want to mention it because it is a sin. Knows sister is banging tennis instructor, and could care less. Hopes parents don't spend all of the inheritance. Put all of these personalities together and it makes for a great cocktail party.

Part of the charm of living in the south is the southern fruit loop. Most are good people with a streak of crazy in them that makes them fun to be around. Frequently, they come from an entire family of southern crazy and those are the most fun to be around.

That's all well and good. I do agree the sec is faster than the Big Ten and I think that although it is down this year, it is still the best conference in college football. I'll trust my eyes on that one. Unlike tosu and Big Ten fans, I'm not obsessed about that fact. Big Ten fans might wonder how I watch a Big Ten game without worrying about what the sec fans think of Big Ten speed...I use my eyes. Like the mac, I know what it is and when a game is good, I watch. When it is bad, I find something else to do with my time. Sometimes, I just like watching football. Case in point. Earlier this year, my wife and I flew to Chicago to meet friends from Pittsburgh for a weekend. Didn't have much to do Saturday so we took the train up to Northwestern to watch them play Minnesota. 11 AM CST start...Captain Kangaroo would have had a stroke. We got tickets on the 50 for $25 per person. Had a great day watching college football and not once did anyone around us at our seat or at the bar before the game talk about the SEC. Somehow, tosu fans can't talk about college football for five minutes without becoming paranoid about what sec fans think about their speed. I think this is what has happened to tosu fans. They worry so much about what other people think of their program and the Big Ten that they have trouble fully enjoying football. If they could just drop the self induced paranoia, they might be less of a bunch of a-holes. Maybe they would swear less often as well. Personally, I wish they would all just go away and worry about something else like the war on Christmas.

The word "fan" is short for fanatic. Why would you argue with a fanatic? Ignore them. Enjoy life.

It's funny you bring this up. I thought about something similar this year and it relates to a now freshman WR at Purdue you know about. I was sitting at the Wake vs. NC State game this year and looking over the program, I saw a couple starters for NC State were from Ohio. Solid contributors too and one was a redshirt freshman. It got me thinking. For a kid from Ohio, the scenario is usually this. Rejected by tosu, look at another Big Ten school then the MAC. What is the difference between Purdue, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and NC State, Virginia, GA Tech and other warm weather ACC schools? The warm weather schools are clearly the better selection because of the warm weather and hot southern girls. No reason to wear a parka down here. It makes no sense to me that a kid would select West Lafayette, Blomington or Champaigne over Raleigh, Atlanta or Charlottesville. I don't think it is realistic to believe many kids are going to select the mac over a BCS school as a primary choice for a kid with talent to play in a BCS conference. The play right away card is tempting; however, if all kids who could play right away went to a mac school, soon there would be enough good upperclassmen that they could never cut in line and would have to wait their turn. With the coaching turnover rates at bad BCS schools, the play right away card can be dealt out quite a bit by those schools also. The play right away card is for bad programs. I hope in the next couple of years, the Zips are past that point and into a normal recruiting cycle. To me, the question for these kids should be: Warm weather vs. cold weather. There isn't much difference between the Big Ten and ACC. Why not live in better weather?

New Coach Looks like a solid hire. Good recruiter and success coaching his recruits. Much better than I thought they could get after recent difficulties.

Believe it because it is true. People don't sit around their tailgate talking about slow midwestern kids. They don't run videos at SEC games about the Big Ten. They simply have their minds in a different place. They have their minds focused on their team and the success of their team. Not the success of their team as it relates to another conference. It is a subject almost exclusively obsessed upon by midwest football fans. I'm not jealous of anything tosu is or has. I know what they are and I know what we are. In fact, if I didn't have to read your stupid posts about them on a Zips board, I'd probably never think about them very much at all until I saw a story on TV or something. It is possible for both tosu and Akron to be successful. You'll excuse me if I could care less about tosu's success. It's not jealousy, it's indifference. SEC fans think their league is really good. It is really good, but not as good as they think it is and certainly way off this year. Way, way, way, way down the list of reasons why their league is good is "We are faster than Big Ten players." Please step away from the internet and enjoy college football.

Expert opinion.

That was six years ago and Florida was the faster team as a point of fact. Since then, the only people continuing the conversation are tosu fans and a few sites that don't have much original to say. Just shut up about it and the silence will be bliss. There might be some minor echos, but once they realize nobody is listening, they will stop as well. I live in SC just across the border from NC.

He was only the third best coach in the league when he couldn't handle the pressure any longer. The road to the national title was then and still is much more difficult for an sec team coming out of the sec west than the east. Nick Saban and Les Miles were then and still are better coaches than Meyer. They win boatloads of games in more difficult conditions and handle the pressure much better. The pressure got to Meyer and he fled to an easier path and quite honestly, a greener pasture because he is breaking the bank in Columbus.

I live in an SEC state and attend at least two sec games a year. I can assure you that nobody at sec games is sitting around talking about slow midwest teams. During the off season, they don't sit around laughing at slow midwest teams. This is part of the tosu paranoia I mention above. It is a manufactured state of reality by people living in the midwest and is magnified by people in Ohio. Do you know who sits around in fits of paranoia about the perception of slow midwest teams? People from the midwest and in particular tosu fans. Nobody else talks about it. Nobody else is that insecure. It's nothing more than "The War on Christmas" stories we have to read about every year. There is no war on Christmas yet the people who think there is a war on Christmas won't shut up about it so there is a perception that there is a war on Christmas. If tosu fans would just turn off their paranoia and self induced defensiveness about what others think of the style of football or types of players they have or the league they play in, there would be no issue.. They are the only people talking it. Just shut up about and the silence will be bliss. There is another topic in another section of this board about people from Ohio swearing all the time. I'd swear all the time if I drove myself insane being paranoid about things that don't exist and trying to find victimhood in what others thought of the Big Ten and tosu.

He was only the third best coach in the league before he couldn't handle the stress any longer.